Directors

Maryse Thomas

Maryse is a PhD candidate in neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Her research focuses on environmental noise and its long-term effects on the brain. Outside of the lab, Maryse is a long-distance runner and plays competitive ultimate frisbee.

Ian Mahar

Ian is a postdoctoral researcher at Boston University, studying neuropsychiatric features of chronic traumatic encephalopathy and other neurodegenerative conditions. He did his PhD in Neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, doing neuropsychiatry research in the McGill Group for Suicide Studies at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute. He also does science writing and outreach, and his primary interests for all three are how the brain regulates emotions, and what happens when this regulation goes awry.

Susan Rogers Van Katwyk

Susan is a PhD candidate in Epidemiology at the University of Ottawa, and has a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from Mount Allison University. Her work involves both health policy and many hours of statistics coding. Outside of academics, Susan loves hiking, cooking, craft beer, and listening to podcasts.

Jaime Devine

Jaime K Devine is an interdisciplinary neuroscientist whose research focuses on how behavior and biology, specifically sleep and health, interact. She has a PhD in Neuroscience from Brandeis University and a Certificate in Sleep Medicine from Harvard Medical School. She is also a dedicated science communicator, runner, working mother and nerd.

Contributors

Uyen Nguyen

Uyen is an M.Sc. student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. She likes to be called “Oo-in” instead of “Yu-en”. Using high-dimensional flow cytometry, Uyen looks at how physical exercise affects immune composition in bone marrow recipients. In her free time, she runs, watches comedies, reads biographies, and eats chocolate-coated pretzels (usually not all at once).

Julia Talbot-Jones

Julia is a New Zealander completing a PhD at the Australian National University. Her work bridges economics, ecology, and natural resource management. She really likes grass, trees, snow, and mountains.

Katie Keil

Katie is a Master's student in the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs and Program on Climate Change at the University of Washington. She is currently researching zooplankton sensitivity to ocean acidification, and is passionate about bridging the gap between scientists and policy-makers. When she's not in the lab or attending some scicomm workshop, you'll find her backpacking in the Olympic mountains, beachcombing in Seattle, or catching up with friends at a local coffee shop.

Joshua Jackson

Josh is a social psychologist with current research investigating emotion, intuition, religion, close relationships, culture, evolution, and outgroup stereotyping. In the future, Josh hopes to develop simple integrative models that can help reconcile the sprawling cornucopia of contemporary psychology. For the time being, however, he enjoys a predoctorate lab manager post at University of Maryland.

Steve Mow

Steve is an aspiring doctor studying at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. While working towards being a physician, Steve’s passion is teaching and has taught science both formally and informally for years for institutions committed to science education. Outside of school, Steve can be found running, strumming tunes on his ukulele, or playing some Nintendo.

Caitlin Fowler

Caitlin recently started a PhD in Biological and Biomedical Engineering at McGill University in Montreal. She is using neuroimaging to study how brain chemistry and structure change over time in a rat model of Alzheimer’s disease, and if anti-inflammatory treatment can mitigate these disease-related changes. She is not yet jaded by the world of academia and is keen to expand her horizons by learning about (and concisely communicating!) as much scientific research as possible. In the little spare time that is left, Caitlin can be found playing competitive ultimate frisbee, reading, or scouring the internet for easy meal prep ideas.

Simon Lehrner

Simon is an ESL and psychology/philosophy teacher in Vienna, Austria, a gamer across all media and loves curiosity in its many manifestations. He thinks communicating science is as important inside the classroom as it is outside and was therefore immediately drawn to Useful Science. When he's not hunched over classwork, a game board, his computer or a book/newspaper, he's out taking a walk or eating delicious food.

Jaan Altosaar

Jaan's undergrad is in Maths & Physics from McGill in 2013; his name is weird because he's Estonian-Canadian. He's a Physics PhD student in machine learning at Princeton and Columbia. He founded Useful Science in 2014 and gets excited about the societal impact of artificial intelligence, Roberto Bolaño books, meditation, and making science useful.

Wyatt Toure

Wyatt is an M.Sc. student at McGill University studying the factors that constrain behavioural flexibility in organisms. He splits his research with work in the tropics and work in the lab. Some of his other interests include music, video editing, and photography.

Erik Larson

Erik is a PhD student in neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. His research involves studying how neurons integrate and process information through synapses. In his free time he enjoys playing soccer and pub trivia.

Kevin Neibert

Kevin graduated from McGill with a PhD in Pharmacology and Therapeutics, specializing in Nanotechnology. In his spare time he reads & writes about science in society. He also works with video game developers as a science media consultant at Thwacke! to help to make games smarter.

Michael Gaultois

Michael is hunting a PhD in Chemistry at the University of California, and is a big fan of fountain pens, smoked gouda, M.C. Escher, and high fives. His interests have taken him to collegiate service organizations, RC helicopters, organizational management, start-up companies, world travels, and scientific endeavours.

Emma Fowler

Emma recently graduated from McGill University with an MSc. in Experimental Medicine, studying how cancer metabolism contributes to drug resistance in breast cancer. She now works as a Medical Writer in Montreal and is happy that she spends her day creating interesting learning materials instead of pipetting at a lab bench. Emma has many other passions and tries to do as much rock-climbing, wandering in parks, and reading as possible.

Clara Gepner

Clara is a journalism student at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. She holds a BSc in Anatomy & Cell Biology from McGill University, and an MSc in Global Health from Maastricht University. She loves learning about everything from neuroscience to oceanography, and enjoys playing the guitar and running in her free time.

Athanasios Athanassiadis

Thanasi is a physicist and engineer who uses light and sound to investigate how the physical world works. For his research, he has made sound with lasers for underwater sensing, built an x-ray scanner for sandcastles, and measured how jets of water can be used to move underwater robots. Outside of science, Thanasi is a passionate clarinetist, playing with a variety of Greek and Turkish groups around the Northeast.

Brian Beckett

Brian graduated from McGill in 2012 with a M.Sc. in Structural Cell Biology and in 2010 with a B.Sc. in Anatomy and Cell Biology, and Theater. He is pursuing a PhD in Biochemistry and Biophysics, and is studying protein evolution and the dynamics of strong evolutionary epistasis at Brandeis University in the Theobald Lab. He is passionate about conquering scientific apathy, the education of young scientists, and donuts.